


The Banishment

by anglophileadventures



Series: Fractures and Fragments [3]
Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gladers, Just Angst No Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, The Glade, book!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 18:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophileadventures/pseuds/anglophileadventures
Summary: Gally fights a futile battle to save the love of his life from a horrible fate.





	The Banishment

**Author's Note:**

> I'm experimenting with present tense. Still not sure how I feel about it. Thoughts?

One by one, the other Keepers cast their votes.

“Banish.”

“Banish.”

“Banish.”

Before casting his vote, Frypan steals a sidelong glance at Gally. “I’m sorry, Gally,” he says quietly. “But he attacked the Greenie. He broke the rule. I say Banish.”

With every additional Council member who votes, Gally feels his heart sinking further and further. _How can this be happening? This can’t really be happening._

Finally it’s his turn. “Gally?” Alby asks, his voice cold and distant, probably because he knows exactly what he’s asking of him. “What’s your vote?”

Gally takes a deep breath. “Lock him in the Slammer for a month.” That’s far longer than they normally imprison anyone, but Gally is clinging to the hope that the extra-long sentence might make up for the fact that attacking another Glader has always been a Banishable offense. “If he behaves, let him out again after that.”

A buzz of murmurs runs around the circle. Alby clears his throat loudly to quiet them.

“That’s out of the question,” Alby says, not quite meeting Gally’s eye.

“And why’s that?” Gally spits back.

“Gally,” Newt says, a warning in his voice. “He attacked another Glader. The Greenie, no less. You know our whole existence here depends on maintaining order. Sorry, but this is how it has to be.”

Gally feels a flash of anger. So they’re not even going to _consider_ what he says before ignoring him?

“Why are we even holding this Gathering if you two’ve already decided?” he asks heatedly. “I thought this was supposed to be a democracy.”

“It is a democracy,” Alby answers harshly. “And we’ve voted, and you’ve lost. He’ll be Banished at sundown.”

“No, wait,” Gally argues desperately, feeling the panic building in his chest. “At least give me a chance to convince everyone.” _This can’t be happening. He won’t let it happen._

Alby doesn’t speak, but nods, waiting for him to continue.

“Yes, he attacked the Greenie, but I know - _I’m sure_ \- he never would’ve done it if he hadn’t been Stung. He wasn’t in his right mind; it’s not fair to punish someone for something like that.”

Alby is already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter, and you know it. He still broke the rule, and the punishment for attacking another Glader is Banishment.”

Gally runs a hand through his hair distractedly. A hopeless dread claws its way up his throat, and he can’t assemble his thoughts. He’s sure if he can just find the right words, the most convincing arguments, he can save Ben, but everything he wants to say feels jumbled, disordered in his head. He has to focus. Ben’s life depends on it.

“You don’t understand, none of you can possibly understand…” He takes another deep breath and tries to start again. “I’m the only one in this room who’s been Stung, so I’m the only one who really knows what he’s going through. And it’s - you can’t even imagine - I’ve _seen_ things, I’ve _seen_ that Greenie, Thomas - I know he has something to do with why we were sent here, there’s something fishy about him. He shouldn’t be trusted.”

Newt frowns. “So first, you say Ben shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions because he’s not in his right mind, and now you’re saying he attacked Thomas for a good reason? Well, which is it?”

Minho speaks up for the first time that morning. “If you’re going to make accusations like that against the Greenie, you’re going to have to back them up a little more besides saying ‘I’ve seen things’.” He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.

Gally heaves an exasperated sigh. Why won’t any of them _listen_ to him? “Look, I know he shouldn’t have attacked the Greenie, but there were extenuating circumstances - shouldn’t we at least consider a less severe sentence? And I can’t explain - the Changing is - I don’t _know_ exactly what’s up with the Greenie, I just know _something_ is up, I remember him, and that can’t be a coincidence. I’m not saying he should be attacked, I’m just saying, I don’t know, that we can’t just skip over that fact. We need to be wary of him.” He wishes desperately for better words, for a way to make everyone believe him, but he knows he can’t explain more about the Changing, partly because he doesn’t understand it himself, and partly because… well, he doesn’t exactly know what will happen, but he knows it would be very, very bad. The people who put them here are merciless. “I’m sorry, I wish I could explain it better, but - if you’ll just _trust_ me - I know how it looks, but I’m telling you, there’s something weird about that Greenie.”

The other Council members look at him silently, as though expecting more. He can feel in their stares that he hasn’t convinced them, not even close. Desperately he fights back against the hopelessness, but it clings to him, weighing him down, making it more and more difficult to breathe, to think. _There has to be a way to save Ben. He can’t let this happen. There has to be a way to convince them._

Then he remembers something. He turns to Newt, eyes locking onto the other boy. “Newt, remember what I told you after we Banished Otto? About how I’d seen him before, and he was a test from the Creators? What if this is a similar thing, what if Thomas was sent here by the Creators, as a test or to spy on us or something? I saw Otto, and I’ve seen Thomas too, that has to mean something.”

Newt holds his gaze, but Gally sees the disbelief in his eyes. They look closed off, like he’s decided against Gally before he even finished his argument. “That was completely different,” Newt says. “In that case, Otto was the one who tried to hurt somebody. Thomas hasn’t done anything.”

Gally feels a flare of anger against Newt burning inside of him. He thought Newt at least would believe him; Newt had seemed to believe him about Otto. But now here he is, siding with a near-stranger over Gally, when he’s known Gally for almost two years.

“He hasn’t done anything yet,” Gally shoots back. “Otto didn’t do anything right away either. And it could only be a matter of time until this Thomas kid does something too.”

There’s another wave of muttering, but it dies out quickly, and Alby speaks again.

“We’ve heard all the arguments. Does anyone want to change their vote?”

The other Council members are all silent. They look at the ground, at each other, at the door, anywhere but at Gally. And something inside him dies.

* * *

“Ben.” Gally’s voice is a whisper. His limbs feel strangely weak. He takes a shuffling step closer to the cell holding the boy who means everything in the world to him.

“Gally.” Ben pushes his face up between two of the bars on the door, and Gally can see he’s been crying, probably for hours. The sight of him, and the pleading crack in his voice as he whispers Gally’s name, almost ends him right then and there.

This can’t be happening. There has to be something he can do, if he can just think fast enough or hard enough.

Nothing comes to mind.

“Gally, I’m scared,” Ben whimpers, and suddenly there’s a lump burning in Gally’s throat and his eyes are filling with tears. Ben sniffs, and Gally sees tears trickling down his face, running tracks in the dirt and grime there. “Please don’t let them do this, you know I didn’t mean it, it wasn’t my fault, I never would have attacked him if I hadn’t been Stung - ”

“I know,” Gally tells him, his own eyes filling with tears. “I tried, I swear, I tried to convince them, but - ” A choked sob cuts off the rest of his words. He doesn’t know how to do this, doesn’t know how to say goodbye to the only boy he’s ever loved.

And then they’re both sobbing, clinging to each other through the bars of the cell. Ben never blames him, and he doesn’t beg anymore, but Gally can tell he’s still terrified.

An idea occurs to him. As straws to grasp at go, it’s thinner than thin, but it’s better than nothing.

“Ben,” he says quietly. “When they come for you, just collapse. Don’t try to struggle, just go completely limp.” He knows from experience, it’s a lot harder to drag dead weight than to push someone who’s on their feet.

Ben’s sobs grow quieter, punctuated with sniffles and hiccups. “Just go limp?” he repeats softly.

“Yeah,” Gally says. “Just lie on the floor. Don’t even put your weight on your feet, if you can help it. Just go limp.”

“Ok,” Ben whispers, seeming a fraction calmer now. At least his breathing is steady. “Ok,” he says again.

Gally stays with him, holding his face through the bars and listening to him breathe, for as long as he’s allowed, but eventually others come and force him to leave. He hates thinking of Ben spending his last moments scared and alone, but there’s nothing he can do.

Part of him still refuses to believe this is happening. There’s no way they would actually do this, not to Ben. Ben would never hurt anyone on purpose. Ben, before he was Stung, was pure sunshine. He was kind to everyone, even Gally. Especially Gally.

Before Ben, he merely existed; he wasn’t truly alive until that day, so many months ago now, when he and Ben decided they belonged to each other.

And now, his mind simply won’t wrap around the idea that Ben won’t always be there, his anchor, his comfort. His Ben. It can’t happen. It won’t happen.

* * *

He wants to cry when he sees Ben is following his advice, going completely limp, but it doesn’t make one bit of difference. They just get three of the larger boys to drag him along, drag him to the doors, and then they’re attaching him to the pole, and Gally wishes more than anything that he could stop this from happening, just close his eyes and make it go away, but even with his eyes closed he can still hear Ben crying and pleading.

He doesn’t appeal to Gally directly. Maybe he knows that if he did, it would break Gally completely. Perhaps even in the throes of despair and terror, he’s still thinking of Gally’s well being. It wouldn’t surprise him. Ben always has been considerate.

As it is, his pleas for help and for someone, _anyone_ , to listen to him, just listen, nearly break Gally anyway. He operates on autopilot; he feels as though he’s watching someone else direct his limbs, and his body feels oddly light and shaky.

In some ways it lasts an eternity, but in other ways it’s over all too soon, and the boy he loves is shut behind those massive stone walls. Never to be seen again.

His final scream echoes in Gally’s ears long after the doors close and the sun falls.

Gally isn’t aware of much after that; his feet glide on their own, stumbling over the uneven ground, and he somehow makes it back to their hut. But it’s just his hut now, Ben isn’t there to gather him into his arms, to collapse with onto the bed, to lie next to, lips whispering sweetly and fingers stroking idly. Ben will never be there again.

And suddenly Gally’s on his knees, a sorrow like he’s never known crashing against him, consuming him, destroying him. His whole body shakes with the severity of his sobs, and he’s retching and heaving and convulsing. He sobs even harder, screaming in misery, the sounds ripping his throat raw, and he’s bent double, his hands tearing at his hair. The grief is a physical pain, not sharp like the pain of being Stung; it’s a dull pain, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less intense. He feels it everywhere, throughout his entire body, battering him, churning him up, wringing him out.

He doesn’t know how he can go on, without Ben. He doesn’t want to.

* * *

When Thomas runs into the maze, Gally thinks that at least now they’ll be rid of him. At least he won’t be able to spy on them for the Creators, or get anyone else Banished.

And then the next morning, Thomas runs out of the maze again. And not only does no one seem to care that he’s broken a major rule, their number one rule, but they all want to throw him a shucking parade for it, instead of punishing him like he deserves.

At the Gathering, everyone thinks he’s completely off his head, that he can’t tell that he’s acting psychotic.

He knows. He just can’t stop himself.

Ben is dead, and it’s all this shank’s fault. _And no one will shucking listen to him._ It’s beyond infuriating. It’s maddening.

He knows he’s seen Thomas. He’s seen him, he knows Thomas worked for the people who put them here. _And no one believes him._ They’re all bewitched by Thomas’s feats in the Maze, and now they’re too much in awe of him to treat him like the shuck rule breaker he actually is.

Ben broke a rule, and they sent him to his death. Thomas broke a rule, and is rewarded with the very thing he wants, to be a Runner and go back into the Maze again and again. It isn’t fair. The unfairness of it burns in his throat and stings his eyes, and he screws up his face against the tears gathering, refusing to let them fall.

Ben is dead. He is never coming back. And it is all Thomas’s fault.

_It isn’t fair._

With clenched fists trembling, heart pounding, eyes still screwed tight, he makes his vow: whatever it takes, he will find out why Thomas has been sent here, and foil his plans, whatever they are.

A single tear manages to squeeze out of the corner of his eye, leaking down his cheek before he rubs it away furiously with the knuckle of his index finger.

He will stop Thomas. Even if he has to kill him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry about the angst. But sometimes it just comes welling up from inside you and you have to let it out somehow. At least it was fairly short, right?


End file.
